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Quintus Sertorius (/sərˈtɔːriəs/; c. 123–72 BC)^[1] was a Roman statesman and general, born in Nursia, in Sabine territory. His brilliance as a military commander was shown most clearly in the civil war he waged in Hispania against the optimates of Lucius Cornelius Sulla (the Sertorian War, 80–72 BC). His family, the gens Sertoria, was probably of Sabine origin, and was previously undistinguished.^[2]

Early career

After acquiring some reputation in Rome as a jurist and an orator, he entered the military. His first recorded campaign was under Quintus Servilius Caepio at the Battle of Arausio, where he showed unusual courage. Serving under Gaius Marius in 102 BC, Sertorius succeeded in spying on the wandering tribes that had defeated Caepio. After this success, he fought at the great Battle of Aquae Sextiae (now Aix-en-Provence, France) in which the Teutones and the Ambrones were decisively defeated.^[3] He probably also fought at the battle of Vercellae were the Cimbri were decisively defeated ending the German invasion.^[4] In 97 BC, he served in Hispania as a military tribune under Titus Didius, winning the Grass Crown.

Social War and Civil War

In 91 BC he was quaestor in Cisalpine Gaul, where he was in charge of recruiting and training legionaries for the Social War. During the war he sustained a wound that cost him the use of one of his eyes. Upon his return to Rome he ran for tribune, but Lucius Cornelius Sulla thwarted his efforts (for reasons unknown, but probably because he was in Marius clientele and Sulla and Marius were at odds), causing Sertorius to oppose him.

After Sulla forced Marius into exile, and Sulla left Rome to fight Mithridates, violence erupted between the Optimates, led by the consul Gnaeus Octavius, and the Populares, led by the consul Lucius Cornelius Cinna. Sertorius declared for Cinna and the Populares. Though he had a very bad opinion of Marius, he consented to Marius' return upon understanding that Marius came at Cinna's request and not of his own accord. After Octavius surrendered Rome to the forces of Marius, Cinna, and Sertorius in 87 BC, Sertorius abstained from the proscriptions his fellow commanders engaged in. Sertorius went so far as to rebuke Marius, and move Cinna to moderation, while annihilating Marius' slave army that had partaken in his atrocities.

Propraetor of Hispania

On Sulla's return from the East in 83 BC, and following the subsequent collapse of the Populares' power, Sertorius retreated to Hispania as propraetor, representing the Populares. The Roman officials in Hispania did not recognize his authority, but Sertorius had an army at his back and used it to assumed control . Sertorius sought to hold Hispania by sending an army, under Julius Salinator, to fortify the pass through the Pyrenees; however, Sulla's forces, under the command of Gaius Annius Luscus, broke through after Salinator was assassinated by a traitor (one Calpurnius Lanarius^[5]).

Having been obliged to withdraw to North Africa, Sertorius carried on a campaign in Mauretania, in which he defeated one of Sulla's generals and captured Tingis (Tangier).

Sertorian War

Quintus Sertorius and the horse tail, by Gerard van der Kuijl, 1638

The North Africa success won him the fame and admiration of the people of Hispania, particularly that of the Lusitanians in the west (in modern Portugal and western Spain), whom Roman generals and proconsuls of Sulla's party had plundered and oppressed. The Lusitanians then asked Sertorius to be their general and, arriving on their lands with additional forces from Africa, he assumed supreme authority and began to conquer the neighbouring territories of Hispania (modern Spain). He achieved his first major victory at the battle of the Baetis river where he defeated Fufidius (the Roman general marching against the Lusitani).

Brave, noble, and gifted with eloquence, Sertorius was just the man to impress them favourably, and the native warriors, whom he organized, spoke of him as the "new Hannibal". His skill as a general was extraordinary, as he repeatedly defeated forces many times his own size. Many Roman refugees and deserters joined him, and with these and his Hispanian volunteers he completely defeated several of Sulla's generals (Fufidius, Domitius Calvinus and to some less-direct extent Thoranius) and drove Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, who had been specifically sent against him from Rome, out of Lusitania, or Hispania Ulterior as the Romans called it at the time.

Sertorius owed some of his success to his prodigious ability as a statesman. His goal was to build a stable government in Hispania with the consent and co-operation of the people, whom he wished to civilize along the lines of the Roman model. He established a senate of 300 members, drawn from Roman emigrants (probably including some from the highest nobles of Hispania) and kept a Hispanian bodyguard. For the children of the chief native families he provided a school at Osca (Huesca), where they received a Roman education and even adopted the dress and education of Roman youths. This followed the Roman practice of taking hostages and, late in his campaigns, a revolt of the native people arose and Sertorius killed several of the children that he had sent to school at Osca, selling many others into slavery.^[6]

Sertorius and the Example of the Horses, after Hans Holbein the Younger. The drawing illustrates the example Sertorius gave to his followers that in the same way a horse's tail can be picked out hair by hair but not pulled out all at once, so smaller forces could defeat the Roman armies.^[7]

Although he was strict and severe with his soldiers, he was particularly considerate to the people in general, and made their burdens as light as possible. It seems clear that he had a peculiar gift for evoking the enthusiasm of the native tribes, and we can understand well how he was able to use the famous white fawn, a present from one of the natives that was supposed to communicate to him the advice of the goddess Diana, to his advantage.

Sertorius claimed to receive messages from Diana via a white fawn.^[1]

For six years he held sway over Hispania. In 77 BC, he was joined—at the insistence of the forces he brought with him—by Marcus Perpenna Vento from Rome, with a following of Roman nobles and a sizeable Roman army (fifty-three cohorts^[6]). Also that year, Pompey was sent to help Metellus conquer Hispania and finish Sertorius off. Contemptuously calling Pompey Sulla's pupil, Sertorius proved himself more than a match for his adversaries: he razed Lauron, a city allied to Rome, after the battle of Lauron in which he outgeneraled Pompey and massacred part of his army. He nearly captured Pompey at the battle of Sucro, when Pompey decided to fight him without waiting for Metellus Pius, but was indecisively beaten at the battle of Saguntum. However, Pompey wrote to Rome for reinforcements, without which, he said, he and Metellus Pius would be driven from Hispania. With these reinforcements Pompey and Metellus were gaining the upper hand, grinding down their enemy by war of attrition, capturing city after city. Though he was still able to win some victories, Sertorius was losing the war, and his authority over his men was declining. He lost much of his acumen and authority, descending into alcoholism and debauchery^[8]

Sertorius was in league with the Cilician Pirates, who had bases fall across the Mediterranean, was negotiating with the formidable Mithridates VI of Pontus, and was in communication with the insurgent slaves of Spartacus in Italy. But due to jealousies among the Roman officers who served under him and the Hispanians of higher rank, who began to weaken his influence with the native tribes, he was assassinated by Marcus Perpenna Vento at a banquet at Perpenna Vento's instigation in 72 BC. His independent "Roman" Republic in Spain crumbled with the renewed onslaught of Pompey and Metellus, who crushed Perpenna's army and eliminated the remaining opposition.

See Plutarch's lives of Sertorius and Pompey; Appian, Bell. civ. and Hispanica; the fragments of Sallust; Dio Cassius xxxvi.

See also

• Sertoria (gens)


• Sertorian Wars


• Timeline of Portuguese history

Notes

References

• 
   This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Sertorius, Quintus". Encyclopædia Britannica. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 683–684.
  


• Philip Matysak, Sertorius and the struggle for Spain, Pen & Sword Military, Barnsley (2013)
  ISBN 978-1848847873